Dwelling in Probabilities

Every year I do a “Greening of Our Lives” post for Earth Day about what we’ve done so far to lower the carbon footprint of our home and our daily lives. A couple of people have suggested that it would be helpful to have a more detailed follow up with examples and such so in honor and support of this week’s Youth Climate Strike, here goes. Please feel free to ask if you have questions and I’m open to suggestions if you have something that works for you and might work for us. And no, none of this is enough in the absences of large-scale changes so do what you can on that front too.

My dream is to achieve “Zero Waste” but for the time being, we’re going with “Greatly Reduced Waste.”

So what does that look like?

•  We live in Minneapolis and we’re signed up for the city recycling program, the citywide composting program and the city yard waste pickup program. We also compost some of our yard waste and some of our household waste to use in our yard. We also use reusable containers for our yard waste (the City of Minneapolis has stickers you can put on standard sized trash bins).

•  We collect scrap metal (nails, screws, parts of things, etc.) for scrap metal recycling, which we take in about once a year. Hennepin County collects clean, no longer wearable clothes to create rags and we have a separate collection bag for those.

•  Hazardous waste gets recycled separately at the county sites and pickups, not dumped in with regular trash and recycling.

•  Single use items leaving the house are evaluated for reuse or recycling. Things we use formerly single use containers for: spare change, storing grit for our sidewalks and stairs in the winter, freezing dough for things like pizza crust, storing bulk items like fruits and veggies from the local farmer’s markets (farmers are generally delighted when you bring your own veggie bags and reusable containers because it means they can keep reusing theirs), tea, items for arts and crafts, leftovers to send home with friends, leftovers from restaurants (I’ve started bringing an empty container with me to put my leftovers in; I also pack in a reusable straw) and more.

•  I bring a reusable cup and coffee mug to work every day as well as to weekend events and readings.

•  We bring water bottles on trips and always keep reusable shopping bags, including cloth vegetable bags, in the car. That said, P=plastic bags are really hard to get away from completely in the U.S., even in a city with a bag ban. We wash and reuse the ones we use, and try and use Lunchskins and use alternative containers as much as we can. We also recycle the bags that we’ve reused when we can.

•  We use cloth napkins, handkerchiefs for normal daily use, dishtowels in lieu of paper towels where feasible and reusable and washable dish cloths.

•  We reuse things like the cotton padding that comes in a lot of vitamin and pill bottles. It works just as well as buying new in most instances. Though possibly not for an arterial bleed or equivalent.

•  We buy in bulk when we can to reduce packaging, then reuse smaller single use containers to get things down to a more manageable size. A 5lb bag of baking soda, for example, gets stored in multiple plastic takeout containers.

•  When we do buy single use products, we try to buy either recycled, recyclable or compostable packaging. We also try to look for things that can be refilled rather than replaced.

Reducing:

•  We try to look at our purchases based on the following:

◦       Can we use it more than once? If not, we look at borrowing or renting.

◦       Can we use for a given period of time? If not, can we get by without it?

◦       What is the best way for us to get this thing, whatever it may be? For me, that’s the following, not necessarily in order: ecofriendly, affordable, durable and serves some sort of social good. For example, my old work bag passed the point of being repairable last year, so I bought a new one from Frost River, which makes everything in Duluth, sources materials regionally and actively supports river conservation, amongst other things. Our blankets all come from Faribault Woolen Mill, we buy jewelry, paper goods and pottery from local artists, our glasses are made from recycled wine bottles by Green Glass in Milwaukee, etc. One of my favorite t-shirts is from a refugee employment project based out of Reykjavik that used recycled fabric. My clothes come from Decent Exposures, Gudrun Sjödén and other business that prioritize fair wages and green manufacturing. Is this expensive? Well, there are sales and there are discount programs and there is budgeting and the fact that good quality things don’t have to be replaced as often so there’s a savings there. And this didn’t happen all at once, by any means. We started out very small scale.

◦                     Buy used. Things we have bought used in the last couple of years: our iPads, our wireless router, furniture, books, DVDs, CDs, one of the cars and clothes.

◦                     Repair, either ourselves or locally. Things we’ve had repaired: Repair Lair in Minneapolis replaced my coat zipper, a local tailoring shop relined my wool coat and a local repair shop replaced our hard drives on our laptops. Jana repairs our vinyl blinds when the cats break them and repairs things around the house. I repair clothes when I can.

◦                     Make our own. I have chemical sensitivities so I started making my own cleansers and so forth a long time ago. Toothpaste makes for an excellent silver polish, baking soda and vinegar can clear a slow drain, cider vinegar and dish soap in a small jar is a good fruit fly trap and so forth. There are numerous sites dedicated to making your own beauty products and cleansers and so forth; generally speaking, these are going to be more biodegradable and less toxic than what you can get in stores.

◦                     Food waste. Reducing our food waste is one of my projects for this year – every meal includes something that’s been sitting around the kitchen, either leftovers or open containers of things or just stuff on the shelves. The vast majority of our meals are home made. I freeze leftovers in single serving containers and have them for lunch, we have leftover nights a few times a week, I use cooking equipment that requires me to measure ingredients, etc. And of course, anything we don’t use that’s usable is donated and anything we can’t use is composted.

◦                     When we want to get rid of something, we look at donations first, then recycling, if that’s not an option. For example, books and magazines go to a Little free Library that we’ve adopted and to fundraisers like convention auctions, Friends of the Library and the Women’s Prison Book Project. Clothes and household stuff goes to ARC, benefit sales, etc. We also have yard sales or sell things online, depending on what the item is. 

Miscellaneous:

•         We have a yard that is a designated Pollinator-Friendly Zone, We have native plants and don’t use fertilizers or herbicides. We’re also working on converting our remaining grass to clover and bee-friendly plants.

•         All our yard care equipment is electrical – lawnmower, edger, snow shovel. City yards are generally small enough that you don’t need a gas-powered mower. Really.

•         We grow some of our own edibles (kale, raspberries, tomatoes, chives).

•         All our electricity is wind-generated, purchased through a program called Windsource. I dream of solar panels someday, after we get the attic redone and thoroughly insulated.

•         We have a solar-powered fan in the attic that draws off heat in the summer and moisture in the winter. Between that and a set of thermal curtains in the bedroom, we’re using less heat and were able to phase out a window air conditioner last year before we got efficient central air in this year.

•         Every home remodeling project is approached in terms of need, cost and whether or not it improves the house’s footprint. Over the past 20 years, we’ve replaced the plastic countertops with linseed ones, replaced the washer and dryer with water and energy efficient models, replaced the old furnace with a new high efficiency one, replaced the toilet and shower head with water conserving models, replaced all the major appliances with Energy Star ones as they needed replacing, replaced the crumbling retaining wall with bee-friendly landscaping and so on.

•         Retirement accounts and investments. Yes, we have them and no, we’re not in Warren Buffet’s league. I got a late start on my ability to handle life at most corporations, what can I say? At any rate, we have socially responsible investment mutual funds which screen for things like environmental impacts, the number of women on boards and in executive positions and such. I also have some control of my 401k at work so I direct a large chunk of change to socially responsible companies and bonds and screen the rest for scary toxic crap like fossil fuel investments. We own stock in our local co-op’s expansion so they could open a second store in a food desert and bring in living wage jobs (albeit with some friction) and in Terracycle, which recycles hard-to-recycle plastics like marine waste, among other things.

•         Yes, we have two cars. They are both reasonably fuel-efficient and are very well-maintained. We try not to drive every day. We also carpool, walk and take public transportation regularly.

•         We are omnivorous. We do Meatless Mondays as well as multiple veggie meals throughout the week and our food comes from the nearby co-ops, farmer’s markets and very rarely, our yard. I pickle and preserve things for the winter, we freeze leftovers and use them for lunch during the week, etc. Over 50% of our food is locally raised (closer to 80% during the summer) and most of it is organic and sustainably grown. We used to be in a CSA but food prep of giant veggie boxes and working a full time job plus running a couple of small business were not a feasible mix. I do enough preserves, etc. to trade with friends (chutney for soup stock, for example) and empty jars for jam.

•         I also do carbon offsets whenever we travel by plane or car. My favorites at present are Nature Conservancy (international projects, coral reef restoration, etc.), MN Tree Trust (tree planting, job creation), Cool Effect (miscellaneous international projects), Million Metre Streams Project (New Zealand – stream bed and native plant restoration) and Friends of the Mississippi. I budget from $20-$50 per trip as part of my travel budget.

All of this is in addition to belonging to several environmental organizations, having a phone through CREDO, a phone company that donates to various organizations, having a credit card through a B-Corp bank, etc. Where did all this come from? I started thinking about this about thirty years ago when I joined an organization called Green America. Their publications got me thinking about what I use, how I use it, where it comes from and its impacts and I went from there. Most recently, I’ve started looking at Getting to Zero Waste workshops (our county offers free classes – yours might too) and Transition Town groups and books as well. My advice is that if you’re new to looking at things at this scale or broader, to start small so it’s not overwhelming. Pick a few goals and build on those. Realistically, even if you’re weighing in on the “we’re all doomed!” end of the scale, you will still see some lifestyle changes during your lifetime, in all likelihood. Why not make changes now when they can do some good? And thank you, climate strikers!